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hello and welcome to cross talk where all things considered i'm peter lavelle she was known as the iron lady probably the only thing fatter critics and supporters could agree upon margaret thatcher is arguably the most polarizing leader the world has known in the last half century and her legacy remains hotly debated to this day how did she change the way we think about politics and achieve the world a better place. to cross-talk margaret thatcher's legacy i'm joined by matthew melky or in washington he is a fellow at the competitive enterprise institute and a regular contributor to open market dot org also in washington we have clifford these he is a professor of economics and finance and shenandoah university and in london we crossed the felicity gary she is an international criminal barrister and media commentator on cross talk rules in effect i mean you can jump any time you want

felicity what is the lasting legacy of her she's buried today well to me that she's a terrible disappointment that she had great power. great responsibility i think that might be a quote from spiderman but it's not funny that we're now suffering the like to say of her policies decades ago that cripple the country ok matthew jump in agree or disagree with that. i'm going to have to disagree with that peter and i figured you were actually was a revolutionary both on the right. she was a revolutionary figure in politics on both the right and the left she had the courage to stand up to this keynesian consensus that it dominated politics since the one nine hundred fifty s. that it caused runaway inflation wildcat strikes throughout the u.k. and europe. she her legacy was enduring and especially in so far as john major her successor and tony blair also her successor continued her policies which is i think

all really the vindication you need she was her legacy was also enduring in europe in the sense that a socialist president frank in one thousand nine hundred two made a historic u. turn away from the policies of keynesianism toward thatcher's policies because france was in largely the same position as the u.k. nine hundred seventy nine and he realized that it was going very very poorly and he took a turn towards factories policies and lastly i think she was an inspiration to women as well she broke the proverbial glass ceiling when high politics which was a male dominated club and i think barack obama got right when i said that she. got an example here jenkins jump in here and i think you can necessarily say that she broke the bar for women i think she did very well to get there as a woman but the difficulty is that it didn't really pave the way for a number of other women to enter into politics what she really had to do and i

accept that she was tough enough to do it was survive in a man's world and very much survived in a finance. financially incentivised world where she behaved in a way that didn't provide for everybody the you know the whole colson's of society would get left out of the policies that were made at the time so that what we're suffering now is such a huge. gap between rich and poor in education in printing manufacturing in the legal profession once you bring in competition you leave home the country behind the health of that country includes a lot of women so i accept that she did extremely well to get where she was as a woman but it doesn't necessarily pave the way for a number of other women kclub the problem instead of launching a clever jump in what i play for if i can't win for margaret thatcher. not only

broke the get a glass ceiling she also prove that it is true today that the evil that a woman does lose after her and the good is often interred to her bones matthew d. one of bones that's correct that that. game i don't what i really don't agree with this whole issue of these how in the world that men and women are today . and we have gone beyond the time it was of the walking we should want a man's going women today and then on the time we're talking over each other guys they compete on their own bases she she enjoyed a ten to fifteen percentage point your women have seen references matthew matthew perry minister son of kin skilled and skilled workers alike. well i think the problem for women in the top layer is we're still not lad so you can't necessarily hold margaret thatcher up as a figurehead for women when we're still trying to break through what i call the

dense layer of man there are still not very many women at the top there's a lot of women going to work but the problem at the moment is going to work without the protection of the union save for a lot of women for decades that hasn't been the opportunity to progress obviously it's better than it was but i don't think you can necessarily hold one woman up as a figurehead for womankind and particularly not margaret thatcher no that would not be fair to any particular person nobody speaks for women but margaret thatcher spoke for herself and that's true for men as well and part of the inequality we have today in income is that we have two fisted families we have many families who are both the male and female spouse work full time and how do you compare a single. household headed by a single person to a household headed by a liberated man and woman match if you want to jump in what about the middle class

. well margaret thatcher did tremendous things for the middle class in the sense that she was from a little motor ship she she she deregulated finance and reregulated finance to break the aristocratic club of the upper class she allowed the working class and the middle class to finally own their own homes and start their own businesses there's a reason why during her tenure the u.k. had the largest business investment the largest growth in business investment in europe is because i'm sure her policies were a huge boon to entrepreneurs and i think the strong support she got from the working class bears that out and vindicates those policies like i said before she has seen personally sitting with some strong support from the working class some time slot you know the workers are like a long term decline. go ahead the problem is that what you've got is short term well for long term decline you can bet on the futures markets all you like and let's all be rich for

a couple of decades and then the turnaround happens that's the consequences of the legacy is that some people are terribly poor with no opportunity and some people are you know believe rates and there isn't much in between all you've got is the middle class overworked and underpaid and it isn't a great lack of say. you can have a tough leader and lots of people who recognize her and that the six hundred day line of a little started well before going furniture into the cliff or jumping go ahead. yes the secular decline of the middle class started well before that or took office we have the same problem in the united states that there is an uneven growth opportunities did widen at the top and the next to the top and so forth the accordion style the classes moved up not that the poor got poor but the poor got

nowhere and this presents real challenges to us to the day matthew do you agree with that i don't think that you can blame margaret thatcher for current problems especially because there's this a large decades gap having to do with tony blair's policies and gordon brown's policies which i think to lead a lot to britain's decline but we've also got to consider the alternative that thatcher face that britain faced in the one nine hundred eighty s. there was runaway inflation there wildcat strikes and so this idea that well you know she created someone employment this is true fiscal retrenchment did end up creating some unemployment but what was the alternative another i.m.f. bailout the u.k. already suffered that embarrassment in one thousand nine hundred seventy six and if these policies had continued on as they did in france margaret thatcher would have been forced to turn course justice from climate on did in one thousand nine hundred two just the same so i really don't see the alternative that felicity is presenting

here to thatcher's policy letter answer for self go ahead. in a sense i agree with you that you can't you can't blame her on her own that there have been choices in parliament around a number of prime ministers and she didn't sit in parliament on her own there were people there with her and if the policies were wrong they had the opportunity to stand up to her and vote on behalf of their constituents which they didn't do so she was effectively handed carte blanche to do what she liked. what i was saying is that we are now reaping what was sown it may well have been built upon by other prime ministers and that's probably another argument but in terms of remembering margaret facts what what most people remember is that the creation of that divide between the rich and poor started when she was in office and you only have to take a moment to look at all the stories that are being published this week however tough she was unremarkable and however much we will debate her abilities and her

policies in the future at the same time there are thousands and thousands and thousands of people out of work and reduced to the bread line and really hasn't got any better sense they've been waves of wealth that hasn't really got down to the education and the advancement of ordinary people clifford which i too reactive and i know that gerry clifford whether it's no doubt we live in a very tough times now or but. the. we over learned of the success of thatcher and reagan from that trip through player and from reagan through clinton we learned that we could have uninterrupted growth that recessions would be only mild and we discounted risk and so we encouraged people unprepared perhaps or prematurely perhaps to undertake mortgages and other responsibilities beyond their economic means and beyond their

cultural reasoning we need those values of working and saving we need the transformation of individuals so they can fully embrace matthew before we go to the break you want to react to that nancy go ahead i agree with clifford and i think those values of personal responsibility and savings were values that margaret thatcher encouraged by saving nobody say to any money everybody went into debt come on come on everyone into debt her policy is no no peter peter sees a fiscal retrenchment and balancing the budget we're very beneficial to encouraging savings in the long run that's why productivity resumed that's why business investment you have to have savings to head on math you have to jump in here listen we're going to go to when short break and after that short break we'll continue our discussion on margaret thatcher state are.

the only ones. mission free cretaceous and free transport judges free. range and free. free. to try and free. download free blogs just plug in video for your media projects and free media and on to our t.v. dot com you can. get are sometimes you see a story and it seems so for life you think you understand it and then you glimpse something else and you hear or see some other part of it and realize that everything you thought you knew you don't know i'm tom harpur welcome to the big picture.

the movie about international and world in the very heart of moscow. welcome back to cross talk where all things are considered i'm peter lavelle to

remind you we're discussing margaret thatcher's legacy. matthew fingal back to you why were so many people partying afterthought or is death in britain kind of an odd thing to do. i think this this is very wrong headed distasteful ok but why despite why the village right. despite despite the partying i don't think that's representative at all of of the people that brits at the time especially because like i said she said she had a lot of support from the working class the people that were partying that were largely the the public servants that had their broad jobs cut working in unproductive industry and the people that had been working unfortunately in unproductive businesses that had been egged on by keynesian spending from the

fifty's the sixty's in the seventy's and that it's unfortunate but their jobs it had become no longer productive and they needed to shift to a different production obviously when when factory came in to modernize the economy . they were they were left having to endure some short term hardship and so i think this is the divide recently we also know they've written but it's by no means representative of most brits go back to london go ahead i think one of the problems is that that if she did have the support of the working class the problem now is that there isn't any work so for those same people that supported that that was going to be something that's for the working class and now all unemployed and just by way of example if. if i can bring my position as a barrister to this what we have now are swindling targets in terms of legal aid and other cuts for ordinary people the main there is very little representation and because those ordinary people don't have unions and don't have

a voice that there is very little that people can do other than try and keep working and get themselves into a job so i think people are celebrating her death because that sort of measurable but in a sense that idea that the. individualists responsible for themselves and we're not going to look after each other hopefully dies with her clifford weigh in. let her know if i may comment on the. we we are living in depressed economic times a long period of depressed economic times such as we've not known since the one nine hundred thirty s. russians would call this a kondratieff cycle and makes kind of a joke of being a free person when you can't find a job how do you provide for yourself and serve others except through work so from a conservative standpoint having a vibrant economy is the most importance social program so that each person

can make the responsible choice to get a job provide for themselves and to serve others to have the dignity that comes from work and seeing no incentive to invest their breaks the heart of a conservative matthew that was very interesting matthew i think that while listening clifford you have a point that you know there is unemployment in the u.k. right now it is pretty bad that's not the result of factors legacy it's there it's the exact opposite it's a result of david cameron not following factures legacy there are no savage cuts taking place in the u.k. right now in fact budgets have increased since proposed austerity since george osborne proposed austerity in the second quarter of two thousand and ten budgets have not gone down there are no savage cuts and what we're seeing here is essentially a replay of france in one thousand nine hundred ninety this is a very this is the situation that margaret thatcher tried to avoid and

unfortunately david cameron is throwing aside her legacy and following the continued cain keynesianism which props up unproductive industry unproductive finance and creates unemployment and that's what's going on in the u.k. right now it's not a result of the trouble let's go to the u.k. what's going on in the u.k. back to the. if you go back to the idea of the individual i think we've started this debate with what was mrs thatcher's what was barren estancia as legacy i think the message that she had at the time was look i'm a grocer's daughter from grantham if i can do it anybody can but without providing the ability for anybody else to do it once up there sort of pulled up the ladder and stayed where she was and that we have now is an inability for people who might be grocers daughters from ordinary villages around the country or towns who simply cannot get on the latter and whether that's her legacy all just her identity or what is identified with her that all for one and one for oneself rather than all

for one one for all we would all be debating for a very long time clifford. yes we need we need heroes among us to lead us into the workplace or any other field of endeavor but we also needed to be possible for people of ordinary abilities to be successful and to a conservative a vibrant economy has to be the number one priority of government dealing with the immediate c of a recession is one thing pump priming you know a little bit of keynesianism may be called for but then you have to look at to business confidence investor confidence you want the money taken out of the corporate treasury and put it into investment to plant and hiring and training workers and so there is a fraternity of the productive classes those capital and the labor conservative

matthew matthew she increased by that front from the beginning to her term to the end of her term government spending actually increased one hundred thirty six percent now there's a reason why we say she shrunk government is because her policies were so successful at stimulating growth that government in relative terms to g.d.p. actually went down so that's the kind of growth we need and yes it's certainly true like felicity said that there are always people that slip through the cracks in every and every society but that's by no means representative of thatcher's policies as a whole she brought up the middle class and gave them the tools they needed through being able to own their own homes through act through giving capital access to the ordinary man no longer did a factory worker and assembly line worker need to be there for the rest of his life and they could start their own business by using their home as collateral and b.

and have started start a life for themselves essentially that was independent that we may decide to say i'm going to go ahead tell you. as a public housing stock i sell it to people who then pass it on to their children there really wasn't a great policy to sell off the housing stock so that we now have no public housing for people injected a load of cash into the coffers at the time fending off the council houses but it doesn't in the long term help anybody to get on the business latter i don't know what the statistics are but the idea that the people who bought their house their council houses then took the money and invested it in a small business must be a nonsense i'm sure someone else can work it out but i think the city how they looked at me when i was an entrepreneur isn't during her tenure especially among the middle class how do you explain that to me when it requires a bit of there's really no other explanation as i said earlier i don't see what's short term well for long term decline inject some cash in short but now what you

have is a lot of businesses which you didn't carry cash in short term. i'm sorry what what what she did was around were no anything other than to actually care for the council house example council house example is a way of obtaining money for a lot of property which creates money that can be put in elsewhere that's just the simple example that i'm giving at the moment but it doesn't make the country better or make the country a better place for the poor people are living in their council houses they just pay a mortgage instead of paying rent clifford let's change gears here with margaret thatcher i'm going to change gears here clifford was margaret thatcher a great leader in your opinion or she was a great leader one of the great leaders of the late nineteenth century along with people like ronald reagan pope john paul two done shopping boris yeltsin well.

we know your world enjoyed. well you can go on go ahead go ahead go ahead he was sufficient for the time he was sufficient for the time and. and the world turned a page in terms of the spread of democracy and a market economy serve the world and today we have only about one quarter of the human race in countries that are poor countries using the un definition that the world's greatest advance in against poverty in the last forty years so yes margaret thatcher in that panoply of leaders that we enjoyed at that time and we need leadership today we are lacking leadership and then let me also give another instance of leadership and that is the role that mr thatcher played in allowing his spouse to be the great leader that she was today with women taking their place to do that wherever it may be out or down to that had just been you

know had i jump in now and i don't you can say i last had a loud pedal going and what i had sort of having enough opinions in there writing. some other point you can bet on that it is it is that each each of the spouse each partner to a marriage enables and allows the other traditionally the women has so flawlessly allowed the man to attain their place but this has to be equal and men's liberation and women's liberation go hand in hand and i congratulate mr thatcher for allowing his wife to be a great leader and serve the human race as any i'm going to allow you this will be shown here and i wouldn't use that word allowing i have to accept that she was someone with the qualities that was capable of being a great lady but as i started this debate if you are a great leader and she did have that toughness and that ability to late then you

have to laid where you were sponsibility you have to do the right thing and that's the right thing for all the people that you all a day and the problem is that there wasn't a focus on i point out today and i certainly would not sad that a husband allowed a wife to go off and do what you want to do in parliament day i'll let you do it right and that sort of almost certainly some of it which i'm not going to have they would back with folks like i said he's violating the right and wrong but ok i have to jump in here somewhere and run out of time a fascinating discussion many thanks and my guests in washington and in london and thanks to our viewers for watching us here r.t. see you next time and remember crosstime. we've only seen.

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